Watercolor Doodle Faces | Exercise for Creativity

Watercolor Doodle Faces Creativity Exercise

Are you ready to get your creative juices flowing? Today you’re going to learn how to do a watercolor doodle faces exercise. This is a great way to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, and challenge your creativity.

It’s also a good way to create some original characters for your artwork. You’ll begin with some random watercolor shapes that you will turn into faces. Use the shape to guide you in your drawing and let it lead the way.

Above all else, let go of perfectionism and allow your drawings to be what they are. You can’t be more creative if you’re worrying about the outcome. In any creativity exercise the outcome doesn’t matter. It’s the process that is important.

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

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Art Supplies

Watercolor paper
Watercolor paint
Paint brush
Cup of water
Brush pen
Ink pens (optional)

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Watercolor Doodle Face Shapes

Begin by making random shapes on your paper. When I made mine, I didn’t worry about what colors I used. You will want to stay away from really dark, saturated colors, since you will need to draw your faces on top of the color splotches. Feel free to use blue, green, red, purple, yellow, or any color you choose.

Start with ovals and circles to get warmed up with, but then make a variety of shapes. Don’t just stick with the ovals and circles. The more obscure the shape, the more it will push your creativity.

Avoid thinking of the final image when painting your face shapes. You want this exercise to be completely random.

Doodle Face Drawing

Now comes the fun part. OK, now comes the challenging part, but it should be fun too. Start with one of your simpler shapes, like a circle or oval. Look at the shape and envision what your face will look like. How you approach drawing each of your faces will depend on the shape you are drawing on.

For some of the shapes you might start with the eyes, while others might be easier to start with the outline of the head. There is no right or wrong approach when doing these watercolor splotch faces. I used a pencil when drawing mine.

Speed Sketching Faces

If you’re really struggling to come up with some ideas for your faces you can try doing a three to ten minute speed sketching exercise. To do this just set a time and start drawing as many faces as possible before you run out of time. You could also draw your faces until you have your paper filled and you run out of room.

The key here is to sketch out your faces as quickly as possible. Don’t overthink your drawings, and don’t worry too much about getting too detailed. These are doodle faces, so they should be as simple as possible.

You’ll probably need to look at some actual faces to use as a reference, so just google photos of people and start sketching away.

Inking Your Doodle Faces

I used a black brush pen to ink my drawings. The brush pen makes it easier to get some variation in the thickness of your lines, which I feel makes them more interesting to look at. Go over your pencil lines with the brush pen, making slight changes as needed.

I used a Kuretake Zig Brush Pen that came with one of my Sketchbox shipment. I’ve been wanting to use this pen more since I got it, and this was the perfect opportunity.

Background Drawing

You can finish your drawing by adding in some background colors, or you can leave it white. I used markers to color in the background with warm colors, since his face is a cool color. Using colors correctly can make a huge difference in your finished artwork. Check out our post on Color Theory to learn more about using color to enhance your drawings.

You can use anything you want for the backgrounds. This is another great opportunity to experiment and try new things.

There are several different ways to finish your watercolor doodle faces. This one was outlined with a Sharpie highlighter marker, and the rest was left as is. I kind of like the simplicity of it. You could try adding some pink to her shirt. Or may her eyelids and lips as well.

Another option is to leave your drawing with just the inked outline with no additional color added to the face or background. Try a few different techniques and see what you can come up with.

This is part of the process to developing your artistic style. If you’re afraid to try new things and experiment, you’ll never experience growth. If you want to get better at drawing faces, or anything else, the best approach is to practice as often as possible. This could be done a few minutes a day if it’s done consistently. Ten to twenty minutes everyday is easier to achieve than trying to spend several hours at one time working on your art.

And if you’re trying to improve your creativity then you really need to practice repetition. It’s the best way to shift into a creative flow state. Plus, the more you draw something, the more relaxed you’ll start to feel. This opens up a bigger opportunity for growth. Try doing several doodle faces and see where it takes you.